First step

For:

Children, Young people

Available in:

Haringey

What we do

We provide psychological health screening and assessment for all looked-after children and young people in Haringey.

We also provide a family rehabilitation service to help children and their families when they go back home to live with their birth parents after a period of time in care.

We take an overview of the emotional, psychological and mental health needs of the entire looked after child population, including babies and young children, children with neuro-developmental atypicality, unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people (UASC), young people leaving care and those with undiagnosed learning needs.

First step plus

We provide an additional service working with children and young people in the care of Haringey who have had three or more placements over the last year and who are unable to access child mental health services. We work with them and their key adults to try to stabilize their placement in order to improve their emotional wellbeing and increase their opportunities to access services.

What to expect

When children and young people first come into care, we send a questionnaire to their foster carer or residential carer (called a Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire). If the results show that the child or young person has emotional or mental health needs, we can offer them and their key adults up to six face-to-face sessions as an extended assessment to understand more about what their key adults can do to help them at that time, and whether a referral to child mental health services might also be appropriate.